


it's nothing but mechanics

by floweryfran



Series: my girl(s) [8]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Awesome Shuri (Marvel), Genius Shuri (Marvel), Meme Lord Shuri (Marvel), Peter Parker & Shuri Friendship, Peter Parker Has a Family, Peter Parker is a Good Bro, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Peter Parker is a Mess, Peter Parker is kinda a dumbass, Scientist Shuri (Marvel), Teen Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23402221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweryfran/pseuds/floweryfran
Summary: He and Shuri are both yelling, just yelling for no reason, their yelling will do absolutely bupkis for this— entire situation, and yet they both yell, and Peter thinks it’s sort of relieving, a little, because his heart is pounding in his throat and his ankles and his wrists and his temples and landing splayed-leg on the neck of a metal man hurt way more in the web-shooter area than he was prepared for it to.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Shuri, Shuri & T'Challa (Marvel)
Series: my girl(s) [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659547
Comments: 48
Kudos: 227





	it's nothing but mechanics

Peter hasn’t the foggiest of how long he’s been hiding under this lab table, black sand spilling onto his hair and clinging to the ends of his eyelashes, but it’s been enough for his buttbone to start hurting and his back to cramp. 

“Shit,” Shuri says, from under another table across the lab. “I did not expect this to happen.”

“This is definitely not our best moment,” Peter agrees. “Your brother is never letting me come back, that’s for sure.”

“Not necessarily,” Shuri says. A terrible, hunkering thump comes another step closer to Peter. He watches the foot fall, crude and squarish, his heart hammering. 

_“Domo arigato,”_ says the behemoth.

“On second thought,” Shuri says, fast, “you’re probably banished, yes, sorry about that.”

“We can never, ever, ever try to bring a meme to life again,” Peter says. “A vibranium fucking meme-bot, what type of idiots are we?”

“Smart ones, which are the most dangerous type.”

Another step that shakes the ground and more sand tumbles from Shuri’s table onto Peter’s head. He spits a dry mouthful of it onto the floor and Shuri’s glorified roomba zooms by him, sucking up the mess. 

“Mister Roboto,” Peter says shrilly, “I’m begging you to please leave us alone, all systems shut down, please.”

_“Domo arigato,”_ he repeats. His voice is tinny and loud. _“Domo arigato, Mister Roboto._ _Mata au hi made. Domo arigato, Mister Roboto. Himitsu o shiritai.”_

“Yes, well, I for one do not have any urge to know your secrets,” Shuri yells. She curses vibrantly. “How did we even— he has no artificial intelligence at all. His system is like that of a simple toy. Did we get a virus?” she says. Then she scoffs. “Of course we did not get a virus, this is Wakanda, we do not get viruses.” 

Mister Roboto takes another step closer and Peter covers his head with his hands just in time to avoid another appetizer course of kinetic sand. 

“Do you think he’s just stupid?” Peter says. He peers out from under the edge of the table. Mister Roboto’s red eyes stare straight forward, his dumbed-down oval body and rectangle legs shining chrome in the harsh lab lights. He stands almost six feet tall and Peter regrets every inch of him. What a waste of vibranium and brain cells. “Like, what if he’s just slow and stupid and heavy? Maybe he’s not trying to kill us. Maybe he’s just trying to walk around and, like, keep reciting the lyrics to the song. Right? Right?”

“I don’t know,” Shuri says. “How could _we_ have made a stupid robot? Of all people! It is almost an insult to our intelligence to say that we did _not_ accidentally create an evil AI.”

“Book smarts: one hundred,” says Peter, “sense of logic: negative eight, at— absolute fucking most.”

Mister Roboto says, _“we are alive, full of energy.”_

“Bad energy!” Shuri yells.

“The worst juju,” Peter agrees. “I’ve never been in a place that has drained my chakras so completely.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Shit. May is having one of her sage-burning phases again, she’s all about evening out my energy with— essential oils and, and little fuckin’ crystals—”

“I should not have asked.” 

Mister Roboto says, _“we are working with a battery, now, yeah.”_

Peter feels a shock run down his spine. “Oh!” he says. “Oh! Oh!”

“Pull yourself together, Phoebe Buffay,” says Shuri. Peter can see the large knot her hair is pulled into poking out from under her desk but no more of her. Another peek shows Peter that Mister Roboto is fast approaching the chemicals cabinet in the far corner and that is a recipe for disaster if he’s ever heard one. “What is it?”

“Battery,” he repeats. “If I rip the wiring in his neck, we’re safe. I don’t like seeing him so close to your chemicals, even if he has no awareness, he’ll just— bumble his merry way through them, and I really don’t want to have to be scraped off your ceiling after that reaction.”

“It’s a pretty nice ceiling,” Shuri says.

“Sure,” Peter agrees, “but I don’t particularly want to introduce my intestines to it? At all, actually?”

“Fair enough,” says Shuri, and Peter rolls out from under the lab table.

He stays crouched low, out of Mister Roboto’s sightline even though he’s fairly certain the robot is not at all aware of his presence, nor Shuri’s. He would’ve had to have been hacked for that to happen, and Peter knows how fireproof Shuri’s tech is. Hacking is the least of their worries.

Peter crawls forward and Shuri says, “ew, a bug in my lab.”

“Is this really the time,” he says. 

“To roast you? Always. Are you kidding? You are just so roastable.”

“Shh,” Peter says. He cannot believe he just hushed the princess of Wakanda. His life is so weird.

Mister Roboto is marching still, straight arms swinging, ever closer to the chemicals cabinet. Every elongated footstep sends Peter bouncing clear off the floor. 

_“We are anything you want to do. We are tuned just to do it, oh yeah,”_ says Mister Roboto.

“Got bashitsn mir,” Peter mumbles. He takes two long strides and leaps onto Mister Roboto’s back, locking his knees around his neck. 

He and Shuri are both yelling, just yelling for no reason, their yelling will do absolutely bupkis for this— entire situation, and yet they both yell, and Peter thinks it’s sort of relieving, a little, because his heart is pounding in his throat and his ankles and his wrists and his temples and landing splayed-leg on the neck of a metal man hurt way more in the web-shooter area than he was prepared for it to.

He sneaks a hand into the large chink between Mister Roboto’s head and his neck and wrenches off the plate of his shoulders, following that by tearing a handful of live wires loose in his hands like a sparking bouquet. 

He feels a shudder run through the robot, who lets out a rather dejected, _“thank you very much for your kind help. We can't... live... without you,”_ before his voice trails off. 

Peter holds the wires as far away from his face as he can until they die, and by that time, Mister Roboto has started to list backwards, Peter tipping with him.

He yelps, swallowing his heartbeat before pushing a hand onto the top of the robot’s head, getting his feet solidly under him on the metal shoulders, and leaping forwards off him, grabbing onto the cord of a swinging light. He dangles there as Mister Roboto hits the ground, the entire lab bouncing, the table legs lifting from the floors and the sand table spilling everywhere. Shuri’s roomba armada gets to work and Shuri pokes out from under her table. With her goggles on, she bears the unfortunate likeness to Punxsutawney Phil.

Peter swings back and forth, the light squeaking, the lab otherwise silent. 

“So he really was just stupid,” says Shuri.

“He didn’t even try to fight back,” Peter says. “That was the most anticlimactic thing I’ve ever been a part of.”

“For all of that emotional turmoil, I had hoped he would at least leave you with a grievous wound I could patch up like the medical hero I am.”

“You wanted me to get hurt?” Peter says, pouting. 

Shuri cranes her neck to look up at him. “Please come down from there,” she forces out, her lips turning up at the corners. “I cannot take you seriously while you are up there, pensile.”

Peter lets go and lands lightly on his feet. He tosses the dead wires into a bin on one of the lab tables. He then crosses to the table Shuri is under and offers her a hand. He pulls her off the ground and they stare at each other for a moment, then at the bested bot taking up half the floorspace of the lab. 

The doors to the lab fly open, startling them both, and King T’Challa walks through.

“Oh shit,” Peter says.

“We felt the thump all the way in the throne room,” T’Challa says tersely. “What is broken, who is hurt?”

“Nothing and no one, brother,” says Shuri, as her and Peter awkwardly side-step in front of their robot disaster. 

“What is that,” T’Challa says.

“Our… friend,” Peter says.

“His name was Mister Roboto,” says Shuri. “He was a rogue soul, taken too quickly from this earth,” she adds gravely.

“You have named him Mister Roboto?” says T’Challa. “Is Mister Roboto not the scientist? The same way Frankenstein is the doctor, and his creature Frankenstein’s Monster?”

“So we should’ve called him Mister Roboto’s Monster?” says Shuri.

“Which of us is Mister Roboto, then?” says Peter.

“You, of course,” says Shuri.

“Well, then, who are you?” says Peter.

“What kind of question is that? I am Shuri.”

“Of— course you are, that was stupid of me, clearly.”

T’Challa shakes his head resignedly, then says, “so long as your beast child is sedated, I am done here?”

“Yes, brother, return to your oh-so-important royal duties. Do tell Nakia I say hi,” says Shuri. 

“Ey,” says T’Challa, and Peter could swear he flushes, to Shuri’s obvious delight.

He and Shuri give each other the crossed-arm salute, T’Challa sends Peter a wink, and then he leaves.

Peter squints, watching him go. “Are his shoes absorbing his impact while he walks?”

Shuri’s eyes light up and she latches onto his sleeve. “I call them sneakers!”

Peter groans.

**Author's Note:**

> got bashitsn mir - "g-d protect me" in yiddish
> 
> i'm back!! i've been frantically writing for my ben lives! series (please go check it out!!) and a bucky & steve one-shot im working on and also a new series i'm starting.... shhh.... so i've been busy and sorta running out of ideas for this series as i don't really write mcu wanda and i'm still clueless as to how to bring nebula or gamora into this LMAO no worries i'll figure it out
> 
> would you guys want valkyrie first or nebula and gamora? makes no difference to me, i just want to test the crowd ;-)
> 
> i love you! i hope you are all healthy and safe at home right now. i know this time sucks (like, so bad, so so bad someone kidnap me please) so i'm hoping this brings a little levity to you all <3333


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